Harry Hill's TV Burp

Format

TV Burp is a clip show that features the alternative comedian Harry Hill taking a comedic look over a week's schedule of programming, focusing on scenes from a selection of television shows, including dramas, soap operas, documentaries, cooking shows, game shows, and reality TV. Hill presents the show from a desk in front of a studio audience, introducing and commenting on clips while dressed in a suit with an oversized collar and large black glasses.

Clips are usually taken out of context or highlight a moment that was unintentionally funny, often focusing on insignificant or background details. Sometimes the continuity of the clips are extended, either by re-editing the existing footage to include Hill, or by the appearance of props and characters in the TV Burp studio. Cameos in other television programmes and video messages from celebrities are also sometimes featured. In earlier series, more studio segments and sketches were featured, but these reduced for later series to retain a focus on clips.

Jokes and sketches are delivered at a fast pace, allowing Hill to move onto new clips in quick succession, with repeated callbacks feeding into Hill's "comic strategy of accumulating non-sequiturs until they acquire an air of logic". These callbacks would often morph into series-long catchphrases and in-jokes, setting up larger pay-offs in later episodes. Recurring characters were also common, including puppets, a wobbling jelly, and parodic versions of TV characters. Childish humour, silliness, surrealism, slapstick, and physical humour are all common features, with influences from variety show and carnival-style entertainment.

Recurring segments included a slapstick fight before the advert break introduced by Hill stating that he liked two separate things before asking "But which is better? Only one way to find out! Fight!"; "TV Highlight of the Week" showing an often inconsequential moment from a show; and an ending musical performance by a guest from one of the episode's clips.

History and production

Hill initially conceived of TV Burp after being invited to contribute as a guest editor to The Sun's television review column, thinking he could expand his ideas into a television show about television similar to In Bed with Medinner. He first pitched the show to the BBC before turning to ITV. Following a successful pilot broadcast on ITV1 on 22 December 2001, a series was commissioned and the first episode aired on 14 November 2002. The show was produced for ITV by Avalon Television.

The show was written by Hill with assistance from a writing team; writers varied across the show's run but Hill described the core team as Brenda Gilhooly, Paul Hawksbee, Daniel Maier, and David Quantick. Hill and the writing team would watch hours of television from preview tapes to find material. Clips were licensed from ITV and Channel 4 but the BBC did not offer licensing for the clips from its shows; beginning in series two, clips from BBC shows were included under the principle of fair dealing.

Initially, ITV was unsure how to schedule the show and its first few series were broadcast in a late night slot on Thursdays. Viewing figures were low for these first few series and Hill has said the show was continuously at risk of cancellation around this time. ITV asked Hill to do An Audience with... show to start the fourth series and increase anticipation; Hill did not want to do the show but reluctantly agreed. The fourth series was also moved to an early evening teatime slot and ratings improved. According to an interview with Hill in The Guardian, most viewers only became aware of the show by the sixth series in 2007. The show was moved to the Saturday prime time slot for the ninth series in 2009. The success of the show led to Hill presenting You've Been Framed! and TV Burp in adjacent slots during ITV's Saturday night prime time.

In 2010, ITV signed a deal with Avalon and Hill to produce two more series of the show from 2010 to 2012. By 2011 there were reports that Hill was planning to quit the show after this deal expired and the show ended in 2012. Hill had reportedly been offered a "golden handcuffs" deal worth millions of pounds, but Hill denied these claims saying they had been exaggerated. Hill had wanted the show to continue and asked fellow comedian Peter Kay to replace him as the show's host, but he turned down the offer. Hill left the show in part due to the intense workload it required to watch hours of television for seconds-long clips, which had worsened as the show had gained popularity and series extended in length. While earlier series had been just six to eight episodes long, later series were up to 25 episodes.

Reception

Critical reception

TV Burp received positive feedback from critics. Mark Lawson from The Guardian said in 2008 it was "the freshest and most original show in mainstream television" and across 2008 and 2009 it was listed as one of the best shows on TV in The Telegraph and The Times. Simon Hoggart, writing in The Spectator, commended the show for "[assailing] everything on television that is stupid, shoddy, lazy, contemptuous of the audience and generally rubbish". Andrew Mickel from Den of Geek praised the fast pace of the gags but felt the show relied too heavily on ITV soap operas. In a review for a TV Burp box set released in 2010, Tim Lusher said its skits were "timeless" and called the show "exuberantly daft, and mischievous but affectionate".

Writing at the time of the show's final series in 2012, Bruce Dessau said that the show's quality had varied over its run, but at its best it had managed to create an "across-the-board appeal" reminiscent of The Simpsons. Ultimately, he felt the show would "be sorely missed" and that "ITV will never be the same again". Mark Smith from The Herald was also disappointed for the show to end, citing Hill's ability to make viewers see things from a new perspective and his celebration of the silliness of television. David Bowden for Spiked concurred that TV Burp had a attained an appeal for "all the family", but felt its true achievement was as "one of the great biting critics of twenty-first-century popular entertainment".

In a retrospective for the i newspaper, Alex Nelson praised TV Burp's "electric pace" and the originality of its approach to clip shows. He also felt the show avoided a judgmental tone by targeting low- and high-brow entertainment equally. Another retrospective for The Guardian by Rich Pelley called the show a "TV masterclass" but argued that the quality declined in later seasons due to the increased number of episodes and hence increased workload on Hill and the show's other writers.

Public response and popularity

Although viewing figures were initially low, the popularity of the show increased over time. The debut episode was watched by almost 3 million people. By 2008, it was averaging over 6 million viewers per episode and at its peak it was watched by more than 8 million people. The final series opened with 5.45 million viewers, taking a 22.6% audience share.

Throughout its run, TV Burp faced controversies over some of its jokes. In 2007, Ofcom ruled that TV Burp had breached guidelines by including clips from a Bear Grylls programme that were inappropriately scheduled for its early evening show time and family audiences, including clips that featured Grylls eating a frog and cooking a turtle. Another clip, which had been broadcast in 2008 and cleared by Ofcom at the time, was banned after being repeated by digital channel Dave in 2016. The clip featured a comedic review of a Channel 4 documentary about Thomas Beatie, a transgender man, and was ruled "highly offensive to the transgender community" by Ofcom.

Influence

According to the television studies scholar James Leggott, TV Burp was "one of the most popular and long-running British comedy series of the noughties". The Telegraph similarly listed TV Burp as one of the television shows that defined the 2000s. The show was briefly portrayed at the London 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony during a section celebrating British music and popular culture since the 1960s. It was portrayed as "a 'typical' British Saturday evening, [where] television was a cultural form bringing the family together".

The television studies scholar Leon Hunt states that TV Burp is seen as one of Harry Hill's biggest successes and "turned a critically disparaged genre, the clip show, into one of the most consistently inspired comedy shows on TV." Leggott identified TV Burp as being influential in the clip show genre for focusing on everyday programmes, instead of unknown or unreleased clips as previous clip shows had done. Its comedy also moved away from bloopers and mistakes towards comedic commentary and a focus on "the grammar of television".

TV Burp also had influence on TV shows outside the genre of clip shows. It influenced other shows, such as Come Dine with Me and The Only Way Is Essex, to include ironic voiceovers to pre-empt any mockery that could be directed towards them. Its popularity led to increased success of the show's it satirised; the BBC Three show Freaky Eaters was commissioned for another series due to it being covered extensively on TV Burp. An Australian version of TV Burp presented by Ed Kavalee was created for Seven Network in 2009.

Awards and nominations

Transmissions

Series

Specials

From 2005 to 2011, the biennial BBC One transmission of the Red Nose Day telethon in aid of Comic Relief included a short TV Burp segment. Hill also recorded a short TV Burp segment for Blue Peter in February 2009.

Repeats and home media

Due to the inclusion of a large amount of material to which ITV and Avalon do not hold the rights, repeats and "Best of" releases are uncommon. However, in 2009, the first The Best of TV Burp was played on ITV1, which featured clips from previous episodes. As of 4 April 2012, 24 Best of TV Burp episodes have been aired, in addition to a Best of Christmas TV Burp episode featuring clips from Christmas episodes of the show. In October 2011, Cartoon Network began airing a similar format (alongside Hill's Shark Infested Custard), in which they took past episodes of the series and edited segments together to make the series more child-friendly, but did not record any new segments.

Multiple TV Burp DVD box sets have been released. A tie-in book Harry Hill's TV Burp Book was also released in 2009. Another tie-in book based on TV Burp's The X Factor parody and knitting contest "The K Factor" was released in 2011.

References

References

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